


coming clean for the first time

by toodeepforyou



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 14:13:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18095894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toodeepforyou/pseuds/toodeepforyou
Summary: "Beau?""Yeah, Jes.""I've been wondering how you figured out that you, um. Liked girls."Jester tries to come to terms with a few things.





	coming clean for the first time

"Beau?"

"Yeah, Jes."

"I've been wondering how you figured out that you, um. Liked girls."

Beau propped herself up with one arm. Her bed creaked its disapproval at the movement; furniture in low-budget inns like this seemed loudest around three o'clock in the morning.

"That's, uh, an interesting question."

"You don't have to answer, I don't mean to pry, you probably don't want to tell m-"

"No, no, it's fine. It's just that I don't have an interesting answer to, y'know, match up to it. I just..." Beau trailed off. A moment passed. "I just sort of knew. There wasn't just one day that I was like, 'wow, I think that I will go ahead and like girls now,' but there were a few things looking back that I can now, y'know, positively identify as distinctly, um. Gay, I guess."

Another creak sounded from the other side of the room. Beau could just make out Jester sitting up in her bed.

"Can you tell me more?" Jester's voice was quiet. Not scared, but something close.

"Well. When I was a little kid, my parents always had visitors around the, uh, the estate." Just saying the words left a bad taste in Beau's mouth. "Merchants, a few nobles and the like. Rich assholes. There was one couple from across the sea that stayed with us for a few nights. I was thirteen. The lady was... Pretty. Really beautiful. They had dinner with us and I saw the way the man interacted with her. He hung onto every word she said, and looked at her like there was no one else in the room. I... Wanted to be like that, head over heels. For a while I thought I was into the dude, but I found out what I really wanted was to be helplessly in love with a lady like that."

Jester sighed softly. "Have you?"

"Hm?"

"Have you been in love like that?" Jester's bed groaned again as she shifted.

"Never." A strange heat crept across Beau's face. "Not yet."

"That'd be nice, I think."

“Yeah.”

Beau reclined back down in her bed, with Jester following suit moments later. Several minutes passed with no sound but muffled conversation from the tavern downstairs. A certain curiosity lurked at the corners of Beau’s mind, but she banished the thought before beginning to drift to sleep.

“Beau.”

“Hmm.”

“I…” Jester paused as another creak signalled her shifting back to an upright position. “I think I’m figuring some things out. Learning some things. Like, every day I’m learning new things with everyone and it’s totally cool and I’m becoming a really awesome cleric. But I’m also learning other things.” She shifted uneasily.

“So, what you’re saying is…” Beau trailed off as she sat back up in the bed. She had pieced together where the conversation was likely going, but for once jumping to a conclusion seemed too risky.

“You know the way you’re always flirting with Yasha? Like, laying it on real thick.”

“Yeah, I kn-”

“Like, making it totally obvious that you’re super into her,” Jester leaned forward, then continued in a conspiratorial tone, “Trying to get into her pants.”

“Let’s bring it back around to the topic at hand.” Beau tried to ignore how her heart raced at the sight of Jester’s toothy grin.

“It’s like -” Jester flopped backwards, draping herself across her bed sideways. “I hear that, and I want that. I try to imagine Fjord saying those things to me, because he’s a super great guy and I’m super in love with him, I think, maybe? But it just doesn’t fit.”

“So what do you feel when you think about a girl hitting on you?” Beau still wasn’t used to playing the role of helping other people through their emotional problems, but this is  _ Jester _ we’re talking about, dammit.

With a great heave, Jester pulled herself off the bed and began pacing around the small room before lingering facing the window. She didn’t speak for a long time, and there was something about the way she eventually glanced back over her shoulder that made Beau rise to join her.

“Are you okay?” Beau stood behind Jester and gently touched her arm. “We can stop talking, if you’d rather just think about it.”

“You know how people say they get butterflies in their stomach when someone really cute is around and stuff?” Jester turned to face Beau and waited for her to nod softly before continuing. “I always thought it was, like, figurative and super abstract, like there’s no way some boy could actually make you feel something like that.” Jester’s eyes darted from Beau to the floor.

“And you feel that way when you think about girls talking to you?”

“About you.”

“Oh.”

Jester broke away and quickly sat back down on the bed. “And now I’m going off like an idiot and telling my best friend I’m super into her and I’m probably wrong anyways and I just seem like an idiot for saying anything and-” She flopped backward and pulled a pillow over to cover her face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Beau sat down beside Jester. A moment passed as she tried to collect her thoughts. “You just... Caught me off guard.” She wanted to tell her what she’d been feeling for weeks now, but couldn’t find the right words to say it.

“I know!” Jester pulled herself upright again, looked at Beau, and then back down at the floor. “I shouldn’t have sprung this on you out of the blue.”

“It’s fine, Jes.” Beau suddenly found her hand on Jester’s knee, and just as suddenly noticed her heart was racing. “I get into a lot of trouble following just about every idiot impulse that crosses my mind, but it’s just as bad to, y’know, keep that bottled up.”

“I… Okay. Is it okay if I just get something off my chest?”

“Only if I get to make a joke about getting that nightgown off your chest.”

Jester laughed, so maybe that was a good joke after all. “Of course.”

“Then by all means, go right ahead.”

“So.” Jester took a deep breath before beginning a long, fast string of words. “You’re super cute and I like to look at you and I have since we met and I thought it was just because, you know, I like cute things a lot but now I think it’s because I’m into you and it feels wrong to say it because we’re best friends and you’re so obviously in love with Yasha and,” another long inhale, “I feel guilty that I want you to hang around me the way you hang around her and I know you care so, so, so much about everyone but I want you to care about me in a different way and basically every time you look at me now I wanna kiss your face.” Jester let out an anxious huff as she finished speaking.

“... Wow. That was a really long sentence. Maybe make a second draft, put in a couple spaces for air, y’know...” Beau’s voice tapered off. That joke a second ago seemed to work, so maybe being sufficiently hilarious would be enough to ease the tension.

“Thanks, I’ll work on that. I’m going to get something to drink.” Jester stood and began to walk toward the door.

“Wait.” Beau found her hand once more moving of its own accord, this time catching Jester’s as she turned to leave.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to let me down easy or anything. I’m sorry.”

Beau stood, looking up into Jester’s dark eyes. Her mind went blank. Words, dammit, words! Beau could always find something to say, even if it’s exactly the wrong thing. But now, so close to Jester, moonlight streaming through the window, she couldn’t form a sentence. Jester looked back into her eyes for a moment, and then down to the ground as Beau stood motionless, wordless. The look on Jester’s face, something like sadness or loneliness or rejection, made every part of Beau’s mind scream. She needed some way to fix this. Some way to fix what Jester was feeling, to fix the dead silence between the two of them, fix what had been gnawing at Beau’s heart for-

Without another moment’s thought, Beau darted forward and caught Jester’s lips with her own. She felt Jester freeze and a wave of panic caught her; had she misread the signals? Was this worse than doing nothing? That fear washed away as Jester melted into the kiss. A second passed and Beau pulled away. She looked back up to see Jester sheepishly looking away but blushing like mad. Weird how tieflings would even be capable of blushing, but gods above, was it cute.

“So, um…” Jester began hesitantly, “that was super cool and we should do that again, frequently.” 

Beau pulled her in for another kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> sup gamers hope you enjoyed my first fanfiction, written in a flurry of insomniac activity at like 3:00 am


End file.
